


Outlaws

by Mendeia



Series: Through The Looking Glass [4]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, Gen, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 06:50:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14910450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mendeia/pseuds/Mendeia
Summary: "I like trains."





	Outlaws

**Author's Note:**

> This was the very first of the AU oneshots I wrote, and it still makes me happy. But, then, Parker and Eliot always make me happy.
> 
> Enjoy!

"I like trains."

Eliot affected annoyance, shaking his head. "I'm aware."

"They go so _fast_."

"Yes, they do."

"But do you know what the _best_ part is?"

"I'm sure I don't care."

"The _best_ part is when we go over _bridges_! _Really high bridges_!"

Eliot glanced across the shaking wooden seat to the kind-looking woman who was attempting to ignore such goings-on with far more amusement than her companion.

"He likes trains," Eliot reported dryly.

The woman smiled indulgently. "So I gathered." She tugged at some of the creases on her ruffled skirt and returned to looking out the window quietly. The man beside her went back to aggressively ignoring everything from behind his newspaper.

Eliot turned away as well, fixing his gaze out the rattling glass of the train window and seemingly oblivious to everything around him.

But under his breath he whispered, "Any more?"

Beside him, Parker tugged on her cap, imitating the wiggle of a bored boy half her age. "Three forward," she whispered. "Really bad beard."

Eliot huffed through his nose. "That describes half the men in the west, Parker."

"Yeah, and most of it's _him_."

Eliot rolled his shoulders and used the motion to glance around a few heads forward. When he returned to facing the window, he nodded. "The first two rows are all former Union soldiers, too."

She darted a sideways glance at him. "How can you be so sure?"

Eliot turned up one corner of his mouth where only she could see. "Collars. Very distinctive shirt collars."

Parker smirked at him, but didn't question it. If Eliot said it was so, it was so. That was the second thing she had ever learned about him.

The first having been that Eliot Spencer was Wanted "dead or alive" for very good reason.

She had encountered him entirely by accident one very late night in a small town somewhere around Missouri. She was there doing what she always did – playing the part of a young farmhand for hire and lifting wallets and money clips from every man playing cards, too drunk to play cards, and some who were both.

A man with a hat pulled over his face had been reclining on a chair in the far corner of the local watering hole, body slumped, feet on another chair, apparently asleep.

Right up until she reached for his pocket.

In all her rough life, living on streets and in fields and stealing anything and everything she could carry, Parker had never seen a person move that fast – faster than a rattlesnake strike.

The hand that curled around her wrist could have been made of iron, and the grip made her fingers go numb.

"Now." A low voice drawled from behind the hat; he hadn't so much as looked up. "You'll want to be picking pockets somewhere else. Hear me?"

Parker knew she should have been afraid, but she wasn't. "How'd you know I was here?" she asked.

But he did not answer. Instead, she felt a strange sort of tension run through him where he still held her wrist. And two things happened at once.

The first, Parker found herself yanked through the air and slammed to the ground with a weight pinned on top of her.

The second was the roar of gunfire just above her head.

"Stay down," growled the man who had pulled her clear of danger. Parker opened her eyes to see a lean, grizzled face and steely expression before he was gone, charging across the room with nothing in his hands but anger.

But that, as it happened, was more than enough.

By the time Parker had picked herself up from the worn, dusty floor, the room had been deserted save for the eight men in various states of injury or unconsciousness lying amidst several broken tables and chairs. The man behind the bar was blinking at the cataclysm that had overtaken his establishment, and the regular patrons, even the most inebriated, had fled.

And when Parker saw his face clearly, she knew why. She actually took a step back until she ran into the coarse stone fireplace with her shoulder.

"You're…"

There were Wanted posters everywhere. Every town west of the Shenandoah had a picture of that face, those eyes, that expression. It was a poor substitute for the bottled lightning of the reality, but there was no mistaking him.

Eliot Spencer. Wanted dead or alive for murder.

"Don't say it."

It took Parker a moment to realize he had spoken. When she met his gaze again, she thought there was something in it, something she couldn't quite name but had seen in stormclouds about to drop rain.

She dipped her head just once, a tiny nod.

To her surprise, he tipped his hat at her as if she were a lady and not a poorly-grown girl in boys' castoffs. And he strode off into the night like nothing had happened.

Well, after that, Parker couldn't help but follow him.

She trailed him to the edge of town where a beautiful roan mare stood waiting beside a pair of hardy little ponies with heavy saddle-bags. She stayed to the shadows, moving quietly as mist, but he turned with a pistol in his hands pointed right at her all the same.

"Go away."

"Why'd you do it?" she asked.

"Do what?"

"Kill somebody."

And the stormcloud flinched again. "Not important."

"It is to me."

"I ain't telling my life story to some thief girl."

That made Parker smile. "You knew I was a girl."

"Yeah."

"Nobody ever knows I'm a girl." She swept off her cap, letting her rough-cropped blonde hair fly. It was short and wild, and her face, while delicate, had nothing betrayingly feminine to it. That, plus a figure that could not be called womanly even by the most generous description, stuffed into baggy trousers and heavy coats, always fooled everyone. Always.

"Wear gloves next time," he said. "Your fingers give you away."

Parker tried to look at her own hands, but the moonlight was not bright enough for her to tell the difference. She shrugged.

"Can't feel the wallets through gloves."

That won her half a smile. "Guess not. Now, get going. Find some other trouble."

"What kind of trouble are you after?" She took a few steps forward, and while the pistol didn't waver, he didn't look like it troubled him to have her drawing near.

"None for you."

"What if I was curious about your kind of trouble?"

He flinched. "You know who I am."

"Yep."

"So you probably reckon I'm off to live up to my reputation, right? Kill some more people?"

"Maybe."

"Then why in tarnation would you be curious about that?"

"It could be fun."

He scowled darkly, darker than a moonless, starless night in deepest winter. "You think killing is _fun_?"

Parker shrugged and drew closer still. "I don't like killing, but some people are better off dead. You didn't kill the people who shot at you back there. Or me. Whoever they were shooting at. So maybe it's not fun. But if that's what you're doing, maybe it is. The posters didn't say why you did it. "

"Doesn't matter."

She scoffed at him, haughty and dead-certain she was right. "It's the _only_ thing that matters."

Somehow that induced him to speak, and while the moon moved overhead, Parker learned all about a disgraced, honest horse trainer and his daughter, how the father had ended his days in a loop of rope and his daughter was killed in a barn fire trying to save the horses that were her only means of survival. She learned about how a greedy, heartless businessman had made it all happen just to buy the property cheap, had laughed over whiskey at the death and despair that cost him so little compared to the profits he earned. Learned about how he had two more farms waiting on his list and was beginning to move to do the same all over again.

And she learned that Eliot Spencer, former Union captain, was indeed a murderer, but he was also more honest and just than the sheriffs and deputies who did nothing at all about it.

So Parker told her own story of life beginning in New York City on the streets, of discovering before she could reach doorbells that it was safer to be a boy than a girl, and that people were too stupid to notice the difference if she changed her clothes and cut her hair. Of learning the art of thievery from a man who gave her everything but a home. And of finally finding the city too big, too loud, too strange, and wandering into the west to see if it really was wild.

By morning, she was walking beside him as he led the horses, trying to find out what made him speak and what made him go still. It was like opening a safe, knowing the combinations, listening to the tiny changes, finding the one way in.

And Eliot Spencer, who had a bounty on his head big enough to make a man of fortune from any who claimed it, found a person in whose company he could relax for the first time in years.

They wandered together for four months before they tried their hand at train robbing.

Two years and six train robberies later, the name of Eliot Spencer was more famous than ever, his unnamed accomplice had been described a hundred ways and none of them correctly, and sixteen orphanages had enough money to feed and clothe children left with nothing after the war.

They never stole from passengers. They never stole from the government. They might be forced to hurt people, but Eliot never laid a single blow that wasn't necessary, and not a one of them fatal. He couldn't hand bills and coins over to children unless they were clean of blood.

And the banks and land companies they did steal from hated them, cursed them, chased them, but had yet to find them.

Which was why this large shipment of money, capital for land purchases to pad the wealthy companies back east, had more guards than any shipment before, guards in uniforms with guns and guards hired to look like normal people just riding across the prairie.

Like the man sitting nearby reading his paper, whose shoes said hired gun. Like the one with the terrible beard whose eyes had been trained to look for thieves in a crowded street. Like the company of soldiers playing cards in the first rows of the train car.

But people were just another safe to crack, and what Parker couldn't pry into daylight, Eliot could see right through.

Parker fought a giggle. In two years, they hadn't ever been surrounded by so many adversaries, hadn't ever spent hours riding close enough to spit on those who would have happily shot the pair of them and dragged them in for a reward.

And yet no one recognized Eliot now. And no one ever recognized her.

Especially when she was dressed like a boy on a Sunday and Eliot, clean-shaven, wore spectacles and an expensive suit that was meticulously clean and fitted.

Eliot had taught Parker how to vanish into shadows, how to move without being seen, how to spot that which was invisible. In return, Parker had taught Eliot how to walk out in broad daylight, look a dozen lawmen in the eye, and have them never see past their own blindness. This, coupled with taking a bench in the most public of the train cars rather than reserving a berth in the Pullman, proved their innocence to every person on guard for a suspicious, bearded murderer and his ghost-like partner.

"Do you think there will be any more bridges today?" Parker asked. Bridges meant trouble, hidden guards, something they would have to cross to continue forward.

"Probably not," Eliot replied, his voice even with that slightly annoyed tone that kept everyone from bothering too much about the respectable man with the excitable youth at his side. "Seems pretty flat out here."

"There could always be a river. Or a canyon."

"And if there is, you'll see it when we get there." Eliot's answer was clear: nothing's changed. If there are problems, we can deal with them. He gave one lightning-quick glance about the car, then drew out a modest pocket-watch. "Come on. Let's find someone to ask when the next water stop will be."

He rose from the bench, not looking forward at all, in spite of the fact that the payload lay ahead of them, not behind them. But the two rows of soldiers would never let the pair of them pass into the guarded cars, and to try would provoke suspicion. Parker followed him, slumping her shoulders and kicking her feet to add to her feigned youth and hide a bit of her height. Together, they navigated the narrow aisle between seats, taking in their impressions of the people around them and leaving little behind of themselves.

They retreated two more cars until Eliot could legitimately ask a porter for an estimate as to how soon they would reach the next water stop. While the train took on water and fuel, passengers would be let off for a short amount of time to stretch their legs and take care of other business. It was when trains tended to be in the most danger from robberies while they were motionless, and thus the guards would be very alert.

But, if all went well, Eliot and Parker would be well done with their work by then.

The porter confirmed to Eliot that they were still more than an hour from the next stop, and invited him and his son – why they always guessed son and not brother or nephew or assistant Parker would never know, but she grinned in delight whenever someone did, because it made Eliot scowl so – to wait in the dining car which was largely empty after the midday meal and not yet near to supper. And Eliot said something noncommittal and led Parker backwards and the porter went back to his duties, forgetting them in a moment.

And between the dining car and the set of sleeping cars for those who paid a great deal more for tickets, Eliot and Parker shared a grin.

Without a word between them, Eliot braced one shoulder against the door of the rocking train car. He cupped his hands and held them out. Parker pressed one boot into his hands, rocking with the train and the rhythm of her breath.

In a single smooth movement, Eliot hoisted her onto the roof of the car.

Once up there, Parker anchored herself by locking her feet around the edge of the domed, windowed Clerestory roof that ran the length of the train car. She stretched out on her stomach and held out her hands for Eliot who stood below. He looked forward and backwards through the small windows to make sure no one was paying attention and then leaped for her hands. Planting one foot on a railing and pulling against her strong grip, he joined her on the roof almost as silently as she had ascended it.

Only once had they ever been caught in this part of the process, the one time Eliot went up first to pull Parker after him. But for all his strength and speed, she was lighter and made not a sound that could be heard even directly below her in a train car. Eliot was slightly less nimble, and a porter had come to see what could be causing the odd scraping noise.

That was the day that Eliot swore he would never leave Parker vulnerable again. She had come up with a story that satisfied the porter, and a dollar satisfied him even more, but for those frozen heartbeats with the wind whipping over his back, Eliot's only thought had been that he would kill the porter, every porter on the train if necessary, before he'd let harm come to her. From that day forward, she went up to the roof first, and he covered their retreat.

The pair half-ran, half scurried along the roof of the train, focused on keeping low and towards the center of the Clerestory roof of the car. Jumping from car to car was more difficult given that they were jumping forwards in the same direction the train was moving, and landing silently after such a leap was nearly impossible, so they had to rely upon speed.

But Parker was as fleet as a deer even on the exposed roof of the fastest train, and Eliot was strong enough to throw himself surprisingly far, and they both watched each other's every step. If one missed the placement of a single foot, they were there to catch one another.

They passed their own car, ran atop the express car that held their goal, and made one more leap to the next baggage car just to be safe. Then Eliot dropped to the platform outside the far door – narrower here, but with railings and a few handholds for the train porters to use – donned a mask, and entered the car. Parker waited, perched on the roof, until he emerged at the other end having secured the door behind him. The one porter manning that baggage car would either be unconscious but largely unharmed, or tied up and completely unharmed but paid well for his silence.

Thus assured of no trouble from one end, Eliot gave Parker a single nod and strode into the express car.

Parker used his entrance to cover her leap back to that car and ran along the top of it, dropping herself down between the car where they had sat for so many hours and the one they intended to rob. By the time she pushed open the door and entered the car, every guard was turned to Eliot, guns out, barking orders. It was the work of a moment for Parker to slip inside and lock her door behind her – thus preventing any reinforcements from the soldiers playing cards only yards away. And then Parker ducked into the most sheltered spot she could find and waited.

Eliot fought like a lion or a bear, she thought, watching him brawl with a skill she had only seen in some foreigners putting on shows across the west. He did not merely punch and kick – he used his whole body as a weapon, striking with elbows and knees, driving guards into one another or their hastily-abandoned chairs and tables. No matter how many men drew pistols and charged him, he contrived to put them in each other's way, disabling them more quickly than they could form up against him.

Until one particularly astute guard turned to summon help from the next car and spotted Parker.

The bullet struck altogether too close to Parker's face for comfort, and she threw herself away from the corner where she was pinned. She tumbled across the rattling floor and stretched her hand for any sort of weapon, fingers closing on a cane, or perhaps a club.

"Get out of the way!" Parker heard Eliot yelling, and it took her two heartbeats to realize he was yelling at her and not the guards between them. But Parker was positioned between the door to help and a guard determined to reach it, and so she had become a threat and target.

But if she moved, there would be more soldiers, more guns. And she and Eliot would surely die.

So Parker, unable to back down, charged forward.

She hit the guard's arm with her club as hard as she could, and he dropped his pistol with a yelp. But he brought his other arm up and swung for her face.

Parker ducked and took only a partial blow to her head. But she swung her club again, aiming for his stomach. The strike knocked the guard off-balance and he staggered into the safe in the center of the car.

Parker hit him again until he went down, moaning. Then, confident that Eliot would take care of everything else, pressed her ear to the safe and began to spin the dial.

Some eternity of tiny clicks and tumbler sounds later, Parker sensed someone near. She opened her eyes to a guard leveling a pistol at her heart.

And then there was a flash of a once-pristine suit and the guard was halfway across the car in a heap that looked a little broken.

Eliot shook his head at her, yanking down his mask. "Fifteen guards, armed, and you're opening a safe with your eyes closed. You really are twenty pounds of crazy in a five pound bag, you know that?"

"Yep!"

She could read the fight in his disheveled state, but more than that she could see his worry in his eyes and the way his fists wouldn't quite relax. He crouched beside her, looking like a mountain cat coiled with tension and aggression.

Parker grinned at him. She did not need to tell him that she knew she had been safe all along, because he was there. She knew it, though. And he knew it, too.

Eliot's eyes narrowed and one of his hands came forward. Parker didn't so much as flinch as he ran rough, callused fingers over her cheek. It hurt where he touched, and she realized the blow she had only half avoided had bruised and split her skin. Eliot wiped at the blood with gentle strokes that belied his anger.

"I'm sorry," was all he said.

Parker glared at him. "Go away."

And Eliot huffed, a bit of a smile returning to his eyes at her refusal to care, at her annoyance with his protectiveness, at her utter disinterest in her injury. He backed away and allowed her to return to concentrating on the safe and all that was within.

Five miles before the train at last began to slow for the water stop, Eliot and Parker had split the safe's entire contents between them, shoved into pockets and rolled up sacks secreted in Parker's clothing to further disguise her shape. They threw their sacks from the train into thick grasses and bushes where they would not be obvious to any passengers looking out the windows. Then they simply waited for the train to come to a halt.

Amidst the sudden crowd of passengers bursting from every car in the train, sometimes before it had quite stopped, they disappeared, wandering into the greenery around the track and looking no different from the dozens of others glad for the respite from the train's constant movement. And by the time the porters or guards checked the express car and found their work, Eliot and Parker had disappeared into the shrubs, following a well-used path to where there was a tiny shelter for those who took turns monitoring the water and fuel needed by the trains who frequented these tracks.

It was an isolated, thankless job, mostly given to those who eschewed people for one reason or another. These were the sorts of folk who never seemed to mind trading the keeping of a few horses for a young pair of brothers out exploring the territory when money and friendly smiles were exchanged. More dollars changed hands and promises were made – for should anyone turn suspicion on the quiet man seeking nothing but solitude, Eliot and Parker would be there to protect him – and then Parker and Eliot were away to retrieve the fortune they had dropped in the middle of the wilderness.

And no one could quite say who had done the robbery, nor when, nor how they escaped or where they went. The papers would report it, sensationalizing the details until the escapade sounded utterly fantastical. The investors and rich men of the east would throw their telegrams down in a huff, furious at so much money lost and wasted.

And Eliot and Parker laughed long after the sun had set.

Because whatever else it was, being thieves and train robbers, making themselves Wanted dead or alive ten times over, becoming legends blown all out of proportion – whatever else it was, it was definitely _fun_.


End file.
